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cougar and cub

Art by Daniel Arruda Massa
Main story written by Nick Marino
Backup story written by Rosie Knight
Cover by Dean Rankine
Published by Action Lab: Danger Zone

Fists fly and eyes cry as we prepare to say bye in our fearless final chapter! Cub’s captured by a conniving cadre of Megaville’s most malicious meanies, and the injured Cougar refuses to sit on the sidelines and lick her wounds. It’s time to end this sequential prattle with a magnificent battle! Plus, take one more trip into Cougar and Cub’s past as they face their most cynical antagonist from the height of alternative comics.

Cougar’s been ambushed in the Cat Hole and Cub’s out for revenge! Eager to make amends after his hysterical hissy fit, he’s got his eyes on the city’s big bads but ends up running head first into Megaville’s biggest baby.

Plus, backtrack to the black and white boom as a grim ‘n gritty Cougar is pulled out of retirement by a plucky Cub to battle a mutant shark with a shady past!

Out digitally this Wednesday, Cougar and Cub #4 sees Cub out for revenge after Cougar being ambushed! Eager to make amends after his hysterical hissy fit, he’s got his eyes on the city’s big bads but ends up running head first into Megaville’s biggest baby. Plus, backtrack to the black and white boom as a grim ‘n gritty Cougar is pulled out of retirement by a plucky Cub to battle a mutant shark with a shady past

Written by Nick Marino and Rosie Knight with art by Daniel Arruda Massa, the Action Lab: Danger Zone series will be released as a trade paperback in a few short months.

In honor of the latest issue’s release, Nick discusses the influences and historical touch points that they used to put together their epic flashback that shows Cougar’s career from the late 30s Golden Age through to the “realistic” superhero comics of the 00s!

by Nick Marino

At the start of Cougar and Cub #4, our protagonist has been pummeled by her rogues gallery. Distraught, Cub ponders the career of his mentor, wondering how these villains could be so cruel to the courageous Cougar.

What happens next was not only a joy for Daniel Arruda Massa and I to dream up, but it also became an incredibly important aspect of world building for our series when Rosie Knight saw an ingenious way to run with it for our backups.

I wanted to embrace the ludicrous and contradictory nature of superhero flashbacks with this sequence. Rarely do we get to see modern Batman acknowledge that he had hard boiled Golden Age adventures, wacky Silver Age adventures, grim Bronze Age adventures, and so on. But Cougar is all about embracing her entire history!

So we begin with purple gloves and a gun, two of my favorite things that’ve faded from Batman’s persona. To me, they represent the odd combination of silly and serious from the pulpy tales of early superheroes in the late 30s. Daniel’s crook really takes that contrast to the next level, with his violent and surreal death.

We transition to fun-loving, lighter heroics and show Cougar with her first Cub! This peak 40s era of Golden Age of sidekick superheroics is often embodied by swashbuckling attitudes and swooping action. Plus, we’ve got a fun dog villain here who could always show up in a future issue….

Then it’s onto that zany time when the end of the Golden Age found itself softened by the congressional inquiries sparked by Frederic Wertham. This proto-Silver Age of the 50s was often ensconced in especially outlandish moments, so I felt a steamroller would be a fitting feat. We also see one of our present baddies, Miss Chievous, make a vintage appearance.

As we move into the science-fueled Silver Age of the 60s, it seems to me like Diaper Rash is a wonderful antagonist for Cougar and her righteous raygun! This era saw Kirby’s big, bold science and Stan’s fear of radiation merge into a weird blend of superheroics that’s since come to define the rise of Marvel.

But it’s back to DC inspiration on our second page as Cougar sheds her iconic threads just like Wonder Woman of the late Silver Age! Here we see Minerva without a sidekick but representing the idealistic morals of the Hippie movement as she bashes Norm, the sinister stalwart of conformity. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy seeing a guitar smashed to bits?

We sorta gloss over the rest of the 70s a.k.a. the start of the Bronze Age because we have an in-story flashback occurring in Cougar and Cub #5 that delves deeper into that part of Cougar’s career! Instead, we skip ahead to an infamous turning point for superheroes, as they became literary darlings during the grim and gritty 80s. Father Fornicator and his Altar Boys get their butts whooped by Cougar and her first female Cub, Patsy (who we spend more time with in the backup story from Cougar and Cub #4).

No recap of superhero history would be complete without the Image-drenched early 90s and that’s exactly what we’ve got here as an anatomically absurd Cougar takes on the aggressive appetites of Sugar Mama. And daaaamn… look at Cub’s shiny knee pads! Very chic.

Finally, it’s the heady days of 00s realism when tactical body armor became the standard and the Ultimates reenvisioned superheroes as morally complex but incredibly zealous purveyors of fantastical violence. The Roach is at the ass-end of Cougar’s stern and stoic question, as our protagonist prepares to pound this insect into a million highly-rendered and late-shipping tiny pieces.

When Daniel and I showed his tremendous flashback artwork to Rosie Knight, she was inspired to find notable eras of comic book history that we managed to miss! That led to her backups stories, which tackle influences from crime to romance to underground to the black and white boom (seen in this issue’s TMNT homage) and finally alternative comics in our final outing.

Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me! I love recounting the thought process behind these pages and showing you how the superhero sausage gets made. I hope you’ll pick up Cougar and Cub #4 digitally this week and consider pre-ordering our Cougar and Cub print collection from the May 2017 Previews catalog.

The crime-fighting chemistry has dramatically dipped following Cougar and Cub’s unexpected one night stand! With Megaville’s supervillains eager to pounce on their vulnerable prey, a trap is set at Megaville Comic Con by Norm and the Regulars. Can our feline fighters fend off this bunch of belligerent bullies?

Plus, peer into the past through a sensuous silver age story as Cougar struggles to pry her wayward Cub from the paws of a rodent interloper!

January saw the debut of Cougar and Cub, the new series from writer Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa, the creators of guilt pleasure Holy F*ck, and published by Action Lab Entertainment mature imprint Action Lab: Danger Zone. The series also features backup stories from Rosie Knight with art by Massa. While the first issue saw a release in both print and digital, the second issue is getting a stealth cancellation of sorts and will only see a digital release for the remaining issues through comiXology and Kindle.

There is a chance the series will be released as a trade collecting all five issues in September but to make sure that happens, buy the comic digitally!

The series is a comedic superhero series that follows Cougar and Cub, Megaville’s ferocious feline fighters who after tussling with their rogues also tussle with each other. What happens when a superhero has sex with their sidekick?

We asked writer Nick Marino about the change which he said:

Daniel, Rosie, and I have worked our butts off to make Cougar and Cub a comic book that both roasts and toasts superheroes with equal vigor! We hope everyone who picked up the first issue in comic shops will continue to follow the series on comiXology as we continue to deliver tons of humor, action, and drama with this five issue tale.

So, show your support for indie comics! You can get the first issue now and second issue digitally when it’s released this Wednesday.

Until then, check out this exclusive of the backup story from Cougar and Cub #2 written by Rosie Knight with art by Daniel Arruda Massa.

The courageous Cougar and the cunning Cub are Megaville’s ferocious feline fighters, tussling with an outrageous rogues gallery and prowling the city for crime all the time. But when a slow night on the job turns into a saucy encounter in the sack, the age old question will finally be answered… WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SUPERHERO HAS SEX WITH THEIR SIDEKICK?

Don’t miss this sin-tillating new series from the creators of HOLY F*CK, with bombastic backups written by newcomer Rosie Knight!

Plumb the depths of passion with our Love Is Gross variant, or take a trip to the golden age with our Flashback Backup variant cover!

There’s a line in Cougar and Cub #1 where our titular hero says, “You can’t MAKE JUSTICE without ME and U!”

I’ve been thinking about that catch phrase a lot lately, about the nature of justice and heroism. For Cougar, justice tends to be about the extremes, punishing someone more than they would be punished by traditional law enforcement. In fact, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that she might not have any inclination towards true justice but instead towards ethically ambiguous self-interest. That’s a little scary!

But is that really so different from most superheroes? Batman is often blamed for creating the problems he’s fighting to solve, namely villains. Iron Man often borders more on supervillain with some of his conspiratorial choices and controlling motives. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spend very little time enforcing laws and the vast amount of their lives battling bad guys related to their own mutation and bizarre origins.

The list goes on and on of superheroes who have the “super” part locked down while the “hero” is up for debate. That troubles me, not because I feel like these characters need to suddenly fit some moral agenda but because we spend so much time culturally revering them as righteous when they’re actually more likely to be self-centered comets of chaos.

However, though this lack of true heroism can be argued regarding a large portion of our most famous comic book champions, I think I accidentally stumbled onto the core value that separates superheroes from supervillains. It’s not a love for justice and it’s not a righteous conviction. It’s a lot simpler than that.

I was talking to my nephew about superheroes as we walked home from school not long ago. We were talking about guns and how Batman used one at first. But, I explained to him, “Batman learned that he didn’t want to use guns anymore. So he stopped.”

That’s when my brain began to improvise and an unconscious truth slipped out. “That’s what separates him from supervillains,” I said. “Batman learns.”

I instantly went silent, thinking about the veracity of that statement. I began to scan my memory banks to see if it was really true. Lo and behold, in the vast majority of cases, supervillains seem bound by their own unchanging assumptions and internal rules. Superheroes, while often struggling, seem to find the resilience and flexibility within themselves to grow.

Even anti-heroes seem to embody this in their own way. They’ll learn at times, but often shockingly revert to old practices and philosophies when they’re seeking control or victory. Magneto and Catwoman are terrific embodiments of this burden to only learn on a temporary basis, leaving themselves prone to villainous relapses.

Cougar struggles to learn throughout the five issues of Cougar and Cub. After a one night stand with her sidekick, she slips into a depressive regression, seemingly unable to accept her mistake and the consequences of it. I don’t want to spoil her character arc, but I will proudly say that by the end of the story she’s become a (possibly questionable but most like genuine) avatar of my philosophical stance regarding learning and its ability to separate the heroes from the villains.

Wealthy heiress Minerva Manx is the courageous Cougar, Megaville’s premier crimefighter. Billy Bobtail is Cub, Cougar’s loyal partner and a senior at the Sidekick Academy. A slow night on the prowl results in an exchange of passion between our heroes as one of Cougar’s rogues watches from the shadows!

Nick Marino is part of the creative team behind the new series Cougar and Cub out January 4th. Final order cutoff is this Monday.

Wealthy heiress Minerva Manx is the courageous Cougar, Megaville’s premier crimefighter. Billy Bobtail is Cub, Cougar’s loyal partner and a senior at the Sidekick Academy. A slow night on the prowl results in an exchange of passion between our heroes as one of Cougar’s rogues watches from the shadows!

The one night stand between Cougar and Cub causes a downward spiral as the supervillains in Megaville leap to exploit the situation. Can Minerva and Billy mend their partnership and fend off the ferocious attacks of their enemies? Or will our champions let a night of indiscretion end their crimefighting careers?

But that’s not all! Each issue sends you on a trip through time with Flashback Backups, revealing secrets of the past through Cougar’s exciting adventures from the golden age through the present.

Plumb the depths of passion with our Love Is Gross variant, or take a trip to the golden age with our Flashback Backup variant cover!

Cougar and Cub #1 is due out on January 4, 2016 from writers Nick Marino and Rosie Knight and artist Daniel Arruda Massa.

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